“Hark at those fellows snoring,” was the next thing Frank heard. The remark was accompanied by a smothered laugh.
“Yes, they are sound asleep as run-down tops,” was the reply.
Frank inwardly blessed the stalwart lungs of Schultz and Le Blanc. All unconsciously the sleepers were helping on their plans.
“Do you think that’s the boys snoring?” asked one of the two men who were cautiously creeping nearer to the aerodrome.
“I hope so,” was the response, “I’d like to see them go skywards with their infernal air-ship.”
“Scudder will have reason to thank us for a good night’s work,” was the next remark of the prowlers.
There was silence for a few seconds and then a jangling sound. One of the men who had the destruction of the Golden Eagle II at heart had collided with Frank’s wire fence.
“Confound it, what’s that?” angrily hissed his companion.
“A wire fence,” replied the other.
“Well, it will take more than that to stop us,” was the angry answer, “come on, grab the top wire and over we go.”
“Now!” shouted Frank, as he threw in the switch and 500 volts coursed through the copper wire both men were grasping.
At the same instant Billy and Harry outside pressed the electric buttons that ignited the Coston navy signal lights they both carried and the whole scene was illuminated in a white glare as light as noonday. And what a scene it was!
On the ground by the fence sprawled the marauders yelling till the air rang with their cries of mingled pain and amazement at the surprise of the powerful shock that had knocked them off their feet.
Above them stood the stout figure of Ben Stubbs belaboring them impartially with the heavy club he had cut for that special purpose.
“Take that, you lubbers, you longshore loafers!” he shouted as his blows fell with the rapidity of a drumstick on the two prostrate carcasses.
The two men, however, had laid their plans better than the boys knew. They were prepared for a surprise, but not one of the kind they had run into.
Without a second’s warning there was a sudden flash from the hill behind them, followed by a sharp report. Ben Stubbs threw up his hands and rolled over with a yell more of surprise than of anything else.
“Put out those lights!” shouted Frank, realizing that in the white glare the group outside presented fine targets for the hidden marksman on the hill, whoever he might be.
The boys instantly shoved their glaring torch tips into the ground. Even as they did so they could hear rapidly retreating footsteps.
“Don’t let them get away,” shouted Harry wildly.
Frank, who by this time had switched off the current, and was outside, seized him with a detaining grasp.
“No good, Harry,” he exclaimed. “It would be taking needless chances. Now, let’s look to Ben.”
“Only a hen-peck,” hailed that redoubtable ex-mariner, coming up, “just nicked my starboard ear, but I thought for a minute they had done me.”
“That was no fault of theirs,” answered Billy, “they – ”
He was interrupted by a series of guttural shouts and piercing shrieks.
“Ach Himmel – donnerblitzen vass iss – !”
“Sacre nom de nom! Qu’est-ce que cela! To the aid. Monsieur Chest-e-erre!”
The cries came from the aerodrome and were uttered by the awakened Schultz and Le Blanc, the latter of whom was almost in hysterics. Frank laughingly quieted them and explained what had happened.
“Ve vos only eggcited on your aggount,” remarked Schultz bravely when he learned that all danger was over.
“Comment, vee fight lek ze tiger-r-r n’ c’est pas?” demanded Le Blanc, flourishing a pillow fiercely. “A pitee I deed not see zee ras-cals.”
CHAPTER VI
THE START FOR THE ’GLADES
The incident related in the last chapter determined Frank to abandon his half-arrived at intention to enter the Everglades from the Atlantic side. The appearance of the dark man in Washington – he was now certain their plans had been overheard – the episode of the tramp and the attempt to blow up the aerodrome all combined to convince him that his original scheme of invasion of the little known wastes of Southern Florida was as an open book to the men who had only too evidently their destruction at heart.
A hasty trip to Washington resulted, and a consultation with the Secretary of the Navy. The result was that arrangements were made whereby the boys’ expedition was to gather at Miami as openly as possible, and then under cover of night run down Biscayne Bay and eventually double Cape Sable by the inland passage. Then they were to beat up through the Ten Thousand Island Archipelago to the mouth of either Shark or Harney River and thence into the trackless wastes of unmapped swamp and saw-grass known as the Everglades.
The Tarantula was to cruise off and on around the coast and in case of dire need was to be signaled by wireless. These details completed, Frank and Harry returned to New York and a week later, the Golden Eagle II being completed, and loaded in small cases marked “Glass, Fragile,” and other misleading labels, the Boy Aviators bade farewell to their mother and friends and started by the Southern Limited for Miami. With them they carried in ordinary trunks their mess and camp kit outfits, rifles and medical supplies as well as two of the Government’s field wireless outfits. The rest of the party was to follow a week later in a private car with all the other baggage, including the boxed sections of the Golden Eagle II. The canoes and boats for the trips were to be purchased at Miami or along the coast in the vicinity, as the boys deemed fit. In the meantime the Tarantula had been dispatched from Hampton Roads for Southern waters under sealed orders. Not till her commander opened his instructions at sea did he know the real nature of his errand.
At this point it may not be amiss to give a brief description of the little known country to which the boys were bound. Everyone has heard of the Everglades, few have any accurate idea of them beyond a sort of hazy conception of a vast tract of morass, overgrown with giant forests and rank growth of all kinds. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is without doubt the peculiar, even extraordinary, character of this great stretch of country that has caused its geography to remain obscure. Even recent maps are extremely inaccurate. It seems remarkable in these days of African and Polar discovery that here in our own country is a vast waste, 130 miles long and 70 wide, that is as little known to the white man as the heart of the Sahara. The Everglades are bounded on the north by Lake Okeechobee, on the east by a belt of scrub pine-land about six miles wide facing the Atlantic, on the south by the great mangrove swamps facing the Bay of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and on the west by the Big Cypress Swamp which runs right up to the uninhabited region verging on the west coast of the peninsula.
The prevailing idea that the Everglades are unhealthy is about as far as it is possible to get from the truth. So far as the few expeditions that have penetrated the great mystery have reported, the water is fine and the air healthful. The saw-grass, the Seminoles and the snakes – rattlers and cotton-mouth moccasins – are the worst enemies the explorer ordinarily encounters, with an occasional panther.
Over the watery wastes of the Everglades which are not tree grown, but on the contrary great expanses of saw-grass grown prairie, the Seminole poles his cypress dug-out defying the government which wishes to place him on a reservation but has no means of “smoking him out” of the impassable wilds he has chosen for his refuge. The Seminoles also haunt the Big Cypress Swamp and observe numerous tribal rites and legends of which we know little. They are dignified, trustworthy people – but the bad treatment they have received from the government has made them the implacable foe of the white man for whom their word is the same as “liar” – such has